


Eternal Summer of Discovery

by luceskywalker



Series: If We Ever Meet Again [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut oh my, Free! Eternal Summer Spoilers, M/M, Porn With Plot, Red String of Fate, Regionals, elements of a Soulmates AU without actually being a Soulmates AU, this began as a PWP and then all of the plot got in the way whoops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 17:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4928758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luceskywalker/pseuds/luceskywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b>Formerly <i>The First Time</i>.</b>
</p><p>
  <i>The legend of the Red String of Fate predicts that soulmates will meet each other three times before the time is right for them to be together. Most soulmates only feel the true depth of their connection upon the third meeting. But there are some soulmates, it is said, that feel a profound connection the first time they meet, and can do nothing but endure the separations until the stars align and their time comes.</i>
</p><p>On the night of the first day of Regionals, Sousuke and Makoto find themselves sharing a hotel room, dinner, and a surprising amount of chemistry.</p><p> <br/><b>(Spoilers for <i>Eternal Summer</i> episodes 9-13.)</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	Eternal Summer of Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to [Iwatobi_Trash](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Iwatobi_Trash/pseuds/Iwatobi_Trash), for introducing me to Free!, for shipping SouMako as readily and as hard as I do, and for taking the flimsy first draft of this fic and turning it into something far more magnificent than I could have managed on my own. I am so unbelievably grateful for everything, thank you xx
> 
>   
> 
> 
> I took an obscene amount of liberty with the red string thing. I'm not even sorry ;D
> 
> It occurs to me now that Sousuke's shoulder injury actually happened six months after he says it happens in this fic, so please just overlook that small canon diversion. Also, I'm not a doctor so even though I did research for the medical stuff, it's probably not 100% accurate.

**_You’re ripped at every edge  
but you’re a masterpiece_ **

**\- Halsey, 'Colors'**

 

_Every child grows up knowing the legend of the Red String of Fate. According to the legend, each person has a piece of invisible red string tied around their little finger. The string connects them to their soulmate; it can stretch and tangle, but will never break. No matter what happens, you are always connected to your soulmate, and you will always find each other._

_One version of the legend predicts that soulmates will meet each other three times before the time is right for them to be together. Most soulmates only feel the true depth of their connection upon the third meeting. But there are some soulmates, it is said, that feel a profound connection the first time they meet, and can do nothing but endure the separations until the stars align and their time comes. However, the string is as easy to tangle as human emotions are, and untangling it is hard. Perpetual bliss is not immediately guaranteed._

~~~~~

            The elevator ride back up to their room after the first day of the Regionals competition was quiet.  Nagisa, Rei, and Gou had gone in search of some dinner, so Makoto and Haru were joined in the car by only a few stray members of the Samezuka team.

 _Haru and Rin, who met for the third time in their second year of high school, are a prime example of this_ , Makoto thought. They’d been discussing the red string of fate in Ms Amakata’s class lately, and for some reason he couldn’t get it out of his mind. He was unable to think of anything but his two best friends when it came to folklore about soulmates. It was obvious to anyone who knew them that they’d shared an instant connection from the first time they’d met, all the way back in grade school.

            Makoto’s eyes drifted over to Haru, and his brow furrowed in concern when he saw the way Haru’s shoulders hunched slightly. He didn’t bother asking if Haru was alright, because he knew that Haru would continue to ignore him while they were in the presence of others. At any rate, there wouldn’t be an answer to that question until he and Rin attempted to patch things up. Even though Haru and Rin fighting was not a new thing, Makoto had never seen Haru quite this affected by it. Not that there was much outward sign that he was affected, but you didn’t spend seventeen years as someone’s best friend without being able to instinctively know when they were troubled.

            Haru was staring resolutely at the elevator doors as they rode upward, ignoring Makoto’s concerned looks. It was obvious, to Makoto at least, that the constant pressure of their third year of high school, coupled with calls from scouts and the expectations that everyone and their mother had for his swimming, was taking its toll on Haru. While Rei and Nagisa were competing in their individual events, he had told Makoto about his nightmare, and Makoto put two and two together and realised that it was the reason Haru hadn’t completed his race.

            Haru had probably been planning to explain the nightmare to Rin, too, but then their prodigal best friend had gone straight on the offensive, heaping even more pressure and expectation onto Haru's already overburdened shoulders. Having that come from Rin was clearly the last straw, and so he had bitten back, turning the interaction into a shouting match before it even had a chance to be a proper, rational conversation. However, underneath the worry of being once again at odds with Rin, Haru seemed…relieved. Makoto supposed that Haru had kept everything bottled inside for so long that shouting his anger and frustration out had been the best kind of catharsis. Makoto hoped that once Haru explained the reasons for the outburst, Rin would understand.

            The silence stretched ahead of them as they walked through the brown, lifeless hotel corridor, snaking around two corners to come to a stop five steps inside their shared room.

            “I’m going to have a bath,” Haru said as soon as the door closed. Makoto nodded and let him go, knowing that if Haru wanted to talk to him about what had happened, then Haru would talk.

            Makoto flopped onto his back on the bed with a sigh, exhausted from the day’s emotional exertions as much as the physical ones. He tucked his hands behind his head, knowing that he should change out of his legskins and sweats but not feeling inclined to move. He heard Haru’s phone vibrate on the other bed, and spared it a passing glance when it received another message and vibrated again.

            They must be from Rin, Makoto realised. Neither Rei nor Gou had Haru’s number. Nagisa preferred calls to texts for some reason, and Haru’s parents would also call rather than text. Makoto knew that texting Haru was generally a useless exercise anyway; Haru tended to reply to texts the same way he tended to reply to verbal comments, which is to say, not at all. So that just left Rin.

            Makoto was curious about the texts but resisted the urge to get up and read them. Haru would be out soon, anyway, and then he could find out what they said.

            As expected, Haru emerged from the bathroom just a few moments later.

            “You got some messages,” Makoto said, looking over at his friend.

            Haru glanced at his phone and then draped his armful of clothes over the back of a chair and reached for it.

             “Are they from Rin?” Makoto asked when Haru slid the phone open.

            Haru nodded, frowning slightly as he read the first message. “He…apologised for yelling at me in the locker room. He wants to talk about it.”

            Makoto raised himself up on his elbows. Rin, apologising first? That was odd.

            Haru pressed a few buttons, apparently flipping from the first text to the second, because his frown deepened.

            “What does that one say?”

            “He’s asking if you’d be okay with swapping rooms so that we could keep talking after curfew.”

            “Me, swap rooms with Rin?”

            “Mm.”

            Makoto lowered himself back down onto the bed and stretched his arms above his head. “Okay. If that’s what you want, it’s fine by me.”

            He closed his eyes again as Haru slid his phone shut. A moment passed, and then…

            “Thank you, Makoto.”

            Makoto opened his eyes and turned to look at his best friend. “You’re welcome…” his smile turned mischievous, “…Haru-chan.”

            “Tch.” Haru sent a reply to Rin, tossed his phone on his bed and turned away to get his pyjamas out of his bag. Makoto grinned to himself. Haru complained a lot when Makoto used –chan, but unlike Nagisa, Makoto used that honorific very rarely, and Makoto figured Haru knew him well enough to know that when he used it, it carried a weight and meaning that it wouldn’t have if it came from anyone else.

            Makoto watched Haru for a moment, and then pulled himself upright with a groan and got to his feet, glad that he hadn’t made more than a cursory effort to unpack. He started gathering up the few things of his that were lying around and putting them back in his bag.

            Haru finished putting his pyjamas on and sat on the bed, watching Makoto pack. Makoto looked at the hunch of his shoulders and the slight downturn in the corners of his lips and abandoned his bag in favour of sitting down next to Haru for a moment. The shorter boy let his head fall onto Makoto’s shoulder and Makoto rested his cheek on Haru’s hair. They didn’t need words for Makoto to know how exhausted the last few weeks had made Haru, nor for Haru to know that Makoto would always be there for him, in whatever way he was needed.

            They stayed like that until Rin knocked on the door a few moments later. The moment broken, Haru got up to answer the door and Makoto went to finish putting his clothes in his bag.

            “Sorry for uprooting you like this, Makoto,” Rin said when he walked in. Makoto just smiled and shrugged it off, zipping up his bag and lifting it onto one shoulder.

            “Will you be alright?” he asked Haru.

            Haru was silent for a moment. Makoto knew that Haru was always nervous before serious conversations, but he had faith that things would work out. Something Ms Amakata had quoted the other day suddenly floated through his mind: _Everything will be alright in the end. If it is not alright, it is not the end_. After a second Haru seemed to remember that Makoto was still waiting for an answer, and nodded slightly.

            Makoto, convinced that his two friends would work everything out, made his goodbyes and left them to it.

            Rin had told him the room number and given him a keycard, so Makoto just let himself in once he found the room. Sousuke was sprawled out on his bed much like Makoto had been earlier, but he sat up when the door opened.

            “Konbanwa, Sousuke-kun,” Makoto said, dropping his bag at the foot of the vacant bed and sitting down.

            Sousuke returned the greeting in the same manner, his left hand moving up to idly rub his right shoulder. “Have you eaten dinner yet?”

            “No, have you?”

            Sousuke shook his head. “I was planning to get sushi. Is that alright with you?”

            “Sure,” replied Makoto. “Do you want me to come with you?”

            Sousuke shook his head as he stood up and walked over to the table to get the keycard from where Makoto had left it.

            “No, that's alright, I'll go by myself. I...want to be alone for a little while anyway.”

            “Okay. Hold on a second.” Makoto leaned forward and grabbed his wallet out of his bag and pulled out enough money to cover his share. “Here.”

            “Thanks. Is there any specific kind you want?” Sousuke asked as he reached for the money.

            “As long as there’s some inari in there somewhere, I’ll be happy. I’m not fussy when it comes to sushi.”

            Sousuke hesitated as if he was going to ask something else, but in the end he just nodded slightly and left to get their food.

            Makoto could tell there was something bothering the teal-eyed boy, but seventeen years’ friendship with Haru had made him very adept at recognising when someone wasn't in a particularly talkative kind of mood; he knew when his questions were not wanted. Makoto figured that, like Haru, if Sousuke wanted to talk to him about it, then he would talk.

            Makoto dug his phone charger out of his bag and plugged it in, and decided to take the opportunity to shower while he was alone. Sousuke still wasn't back by the time he stepped out of the bathroom. Makoto folded his legskins and sweats and put them on a chair for easy access in the morning, then put on his glasses and sat on the edge off the bed, flicking through TV channels with one hand as he towelled his hair off with the other. There was nothing much on, so he left it on some Korean drama and took his towel back into the bathroom. He retrieved a notebook and pen from his bag on the way back to the bed, deciding to do some homework instead. He flipped the notebook open and started plotting out his Literature essay as he waited for Sousuke.

~~~~~

            Sousuke breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped out of the hotel and into the street. His shoulder was really bothering him, and hiding it from Rin and the others all day had been physically and emotionally draining.

            Sousuke had half-expected Makoto to ask him five million questions about why he didn’t want company, but Makoto must have sensed that he didn’t want to talk. He was very grateful at the lack of intrusion. It was nice to have a few minutes to himself, outside in the cool night air where he didn’t have to speak to anyone.

            He walked the short distance to the main street, and into the sushi restaurant he’d seen on the bus ride in. It was the same chain as the one he used to eat at all the time in Tokyo, so he didn’t even need to look at the menu before ordering.

            The hostess wrote down his order and then put on her best apologetic face to inform him that it might take a while for his order to be ready. Judging by her almost tangible relief when he smiled and told her he didn’t mind waiting, she’d been afraid that he would be angry.  Sousuke didn’t understand people who got angry about things like that. The place was packed and he could hear a lot of people making custom orders, so it was obvious that service wasn’t going to be instantaneous. But customers were often unreasonable, especially when it came to food. Sousuke’s father owned a restaurant which Sousuke worked at when he was home for the holidays, and he’d dealt with his fair share of customer complaints.

            He clearly had to work on his facial expression, though, if the hostess’s apprehension was anything to go by. He paid for the order and sat at the bar to wait for it, and tried to remember the English phrase his cousin Keiko used to describe his expression. After a second it came back to him and he took out his phone to text her.

_ <Just scared a restaurant hostess with my resting bitch face.>_

            The reply came less than fifteen seconds later.

_ <Haha! It is a fearsome thing, I feel sorry for her.>_

            Sousuke switched from iMessages to snapchat, and sent her a picture of his best scowl. He captioned it: _In my defence, this is the kind of day I’ve had_. It was too long for the text box, and he had to draw the last few words on the bottom of the photo.

            She opened it straight away, and replied with another text. _< Aw, what happened?>_

            _< My shoulder lodged a formal complaint about the way I’ve been treating it.>_ he typed. Before he could elaborate, he glanced up and saw the hostess making her way to him with his completed order. _< But I can’t talk now, my order’s ready. Will tell you later.>_

            He put the phone back in his pocket and stood up, accepting the bag from the hostess. He thanked her and returned her ‘Oyasumi nasai!’, albeit less cheerfully. He felt his phone vibrate with Keiko’s reply as he stepped out of the restaurant, and unlocked his phone as he walked along.

_ <Alright. I love you, take care of yourself.>_

_ <Love you too, Keiko.>_

            He slid his phone back into his jacket pocket as he walked back to the hotel, feeling a little better after talking to Keiko even though the conversation had been short. The Yamazaki family was relatively small: the matriarch only had two children, Sousuke and Keiko’s respective fathers, and neither Sousuke nor Keiko had any siblings. Keiko had some cousins on her mother’s side but Sousuke’s mother was also an only child.

            Sousuke and Keiko had grown up together, close friends almost by necessity, but that closeness had lasted their entire lives. Their parents often joked that they were secretly twins who had been separated at birth rather than cousins. The joke was further supported by the fact that Sousuke and Keiko looked as alike to each other as Rin and Gou did. Apart from Rin, Keiko was Sousuke’s best friend and any kind of contact, even if it was nothing more than a stray like on Facebook, brightened his day.

            The hotel foyer was empty when he got back, and so was the elevator, which he was grateful for. He spent the short elevator ride and walk back to the room running calculations in his head, working out how much change he owed Makoto. He paused in front of the door as he put his own portion of change in his wallet and slipped Makoto’s share back into his other jacket pocket, pulling the key card out instead.

            He looked back at the door, and bit back a curse when he noticed the way it was oriented. With a sigh he stepped forward and inserted the card into the slot, figuring that he’d just have to deal with it.

 _Hindsight is a wonderful thing_ , he thought bitterly to himself a few seconds later as he wrestled with the hotel door. The lock was on the left side of the door so the easiest way to open it was to insert the keycard with the left hand, turn the handle with the right, and prop the door open with the right shoulder as one removed the card from the slot. But ever since his shoulder had failed him in the pool, it had barely been able to support the weight of his Samezuka jacket, let alone a _stupidly_ heavy hotel door.

            So Sousuke was left trying to hold the door open with his left shoulder and somehow reach down with his left hand to push on the handle. To make it worse, the lock wouldn’t disengage if the card was left in, so he also had to somehow pull that out with his right hand, without dropping the takeaway bag in the process.

            "Do you need a hand?" Makoto asked from inside, and Sousuke cursed himself for not just knocking on the door and letting the other boy open it. But he’d got himself into this mess, and now he had to get out of it, so he declined the offer and redoubled his efforts. After a minute he managed to get the lock to disengage, and he threw his weight against the door as soon as he felt the handle turn enough to release the catch. The door opened and Sousuke stepped backwards into the room, spinning quickly on the ball of his right foot to get out of the path of the heavy closing door.

            Sousuke could feel Makoto's eyes burning curious holes in his back as the door swung shut, but he acted like there was nothing remotely strange about the way he had just opened the door, and was grateful when the other boy didn't say anything. He dropped the keycard back onto the table and placed the takeaway bag next to it as he - gingerly - took off his Samezuka jacket and draped it over the back of the other chair. That done, he took the food over to the beds. He went to sit on the empty one, but Makoto shifted over to one side and patted the space next to him. Sousuke took the hint and sat down next to him; it would be easier to eat dinner this way anyway. He got Makoto's change out of his pocket and handed it over, and they divided the food up so that they each had an equal amount of the different kinds of sushi.

            Makoto closed the notebook Sousuke had seen him writing in and tossed it onto the bedside table along with his pen before taking a bite of inari.

            They ate in companionable silence for a few moments, until Sousuke’s curiosity got the better of him. “What were you writing?”

            Makoto looked up at him, brow furrowed slightly. “Hm?”

            Sousuke gestured to the notebook with his chopsticks. “Your diary?”

            “Oh. No,” Makoto laughed. “Just some ideas for my literature essay.”

            “Ah,” Sousuke nodded. Makoto smiled at him, which inexplicably made his chest tingle. He looked away, pretending to consider what kind of sushi roll to eat next.

            “So, what do you think Nanase and Rin are doing?” Sousuke asked when the tingles had abated.

            “Still talking about their issues, probably. Actually, no.” Makoto thought about it for a second. “They probably talked for two minutes, lost their nerve and decided to make out instead.”

            Sousuke huffed in amusement. “Does that bother you?” he asked after a moment.

            “Does what bother me?” Makoto tilted his head up to look at Sousuke, seeming confused.

            Sousuke vaguely waved his chopsticks. “Rin and Nanase’s weird relationship thing.”

            Makoto frowned slightly at Sousuke, perplexed. “Uh, no? Why would it bother me?

            “Oh. I just thought that maybe there was something going on between you and Nanase.”

            Makoto burst out laughing. “Me and Haru? Ahhh…no. There’s nothing going on between us. I mean, I _do_ really care about him, but it’s strictly platonic. We’ve been friends literally our whole lives, so at this point we’re barely two separate people. My parents always joke that it's like there’s two sets of twins in the family.”

            “There’s twins in your family?”

            “Mm. My brother and sister, six years younger than me. They’re really cute thirty percent of the time and a total pain the other seventy,” he smiled. “I do love them though.”

            Sousuke’s chest did the tingly thing again, and he was very surprised that he managed to smile back without blushing like a goddamn shoujo heroine.

            They had both finished eating, so Makoto collected the empty containers and threw them into the bin by the door, put the safety chain on, and headed into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

            Sousuke decided that cleaning up was good idea and got up to do the same.

             “Is there something between you and Rin?” Makoto asked when he was finished rinsing out his mouth. “Is that why you asked about me and Haru?” The words drifted away as Makoto went back out into the main room.

            Sousuke made a noncommittal sound, incapable of talking with his mouth full of toothpaste, and waited until he’d rinsed it out to answer. “No, I was just curious,” he replied as he left the bathroom and sat back on the bed next to Makoto, the other bed abandoned on the opposite side of the room.

            “There’s nothing like that between me and Rin. I think that if I’d spent middle school and all of high school with him, then maybe my feelings for him would be different, but we’ve been apart for too long now. The Rin I was friends with at twelve isn’t the Rin that I know now. He lived a whole other life without me, you know? I feel like—” He picked at a loose thread on the coverlet. “It’s like I met him for the first time when I transferred to Samezuka, and even though it feels like I’ve known him forever, I actually haven’t. Even though I actually have.” He sighed and looked away. “Sorry, that probably made no sense.”

            “No, I get it. When we found out Rin was back at the start of last year it was so strange to think that that person was the friend we’d known as children. He was so different. And he’s changed so much again. After our relay at Regionals last year, he was like a completely different person again. Except this one at least resembled the kid we used to know.”

            Sousuke exhaled sharply in distaste.

            “What?”

            “That relay,” Sousuke growled. “Of all the idiotic things…” He trailed off when Makoto laughed.

            “Yeah, looking back it was pretty stupid. But it felt like the right thing at the time, and I think it’s what Rin needed.”

            “Mmm.” Sousuke couldn’t deny that, even though he wanted to. Rin had seemed a lot more calm and focused after that relay, ill-advised as it was.

            “Hey, Sousuke-kun?”

            “Mm?”

            “You can…not answer this if you don’t want to, or you think it’s too invasive, but-” He hesitated, as if he was about to say ‘forget it, never mind’, but then took a deep breath and continued after all. “What happened to your shoulder?”

            Ordinarily, Sousuke’s first impulse upon being asked this question was to snap that it was none of the other person's business, but there was something about the tone of Makoto’s voice and the expression on his face that made him stop himself. Instead, he sighed and slumped back into the pillows.

            “Kisumi, right? I should have realised that if Nanase knew, you would too.”

            “Yeah, Kisumi mentioned it. But it’s other things, too. You’re right handed but carry your bags on your left shoulder, lift things with your left hand. Coming in the door just now, you used your left shoulder to open the door even though it made it very difficult and awkward to pull the card out of the slot afterwards.”

            “Is it really so obvious?”

            Makoto shrugged. “It is to me now. But I didn’t notice anything before I knew there was a problem.”

            Sousuke exhaled in relief. “I don’t want Rin to know. Firstly, he’ll cry, and I hate making him cry. And secondly, he’d take me off the relay team. Swimming in the relay with him is the only reason I’m putting myself through this, and this year is my last chance to do that.”

            “I won’t tell him.”

            Sousuke looked at Makoto’s face, and decided that he was telling the truth. There was something about the other boy that just invited trust, but in a sincere way, without guile or false charm. And truth be told, keeping it a secret was starting to eat Sousuke up on the inside. It was a constant struggle to get through each day, balancing on the tightrope between overtaxing his shoulder and hiding the fact that there was something wrong. He took a deep breath.

            “It’s not an exciting story, or an original one.  It's a rotator cuff tear. It started out as tendonitis, and if I'd gone to the doctor then and rested up it would have been healed in no time. But of course I ignored it and kept training harder.”

            He heard Makoto’s soft exhalation and huffed briefly in amusement. “Yeah. It was stupid. Believe me, I know that. But I was fifteen and cocky and so sure that nothing would ever bring me down. So I kept training harder and harder, until one day, mid-stroke, I felt like my arm was being ripped off. That was when I finally went to the doctor and found out that the tendon had torn completely.”

            Sousuke sighed again and pushed himself away from the pillows so that he was sitting upright, facing Makoto with one leg tucked underneath him and the other trailing off the side of the bed. "I opted for non-surgical treatment and spent the last half of my first year of high school in physiotherapy instead of in the pool. But every time I made even a small improvement, it would break down again. One step forward, two steps back, for months. After I heard that Rin had come back from Australia, I decided that I wanted to swim with him again—even if it was just a high school competition, even if it was the last time I ever swam.

            “I knew that if I continued with non-surgical treatment I wouldn’t be fit to swim in time for that to happen, so I had the surgery and spent my second year in physiotherapy again. It has now healed enough for me to have a mostly normal range of movement, but…I’m still not supposed to be swimming at all, let alone competing. That’s why I’ve been having trouble with it again. I’m pretty sure that I’ve undone all the progress I made with it last year. But I have to do this.”

            “Sousuke…”

            “I have to,” Sousuke repeated, his voice sounding far too desperate for his liking. “I have to swim the relay with Rin and find out why it’s so important to him. I need to understand why it makes him feel the way he does. As long as that happens, I can deal with never being able to swim again.”

            He looked away towards the end of the bed. He felt Makoto shifting into a kneeling position in front of him and braced himself. Makoto was going to tell him off for being an idiot. Everyone did.

            The silence dragged out and the reprimand never came. After a moment Makoto simply asked instead, “Can I see?”

            Sousuke looked up, surprised at the unexpected reaction. He reached up and pushed his sleeveless shirt aside, revealing the angry inflamed skin underneath.

            Makoto sucked in a breath, and before either of them realised what he was doing, he had reached out to touch it. His fingers met skin, and Sousuke hissed.

            Makoto hurriedly let out an, “Ah! Sorry…!” but before he could pull his hand away Sousuke covered with his own and kept it in place.

            “That…that wasn’t an ‘I’m in pain’ sound,” Sousuke murmured. “Your hand is cold. It feels kind of nice.”

            His eyes had closed in the wake of the small reprieve from the pain, and he let his hand drop away from Makoto’s. The other boy moved closer and adjusted his hand so that more of Sousuke’s shoulder was covered by it. Sousuke sighed, the breath flowing out between his top teeth and bottom lip with a soft whoosh.

            “Isn’t this the part where you tell me off for letting it get so bad?” he whispered. Makoto was so close that Sousuke could smell a mixture of his shower gel and deodorant, and it was amazing. He smelt so sinfully good, in fact, that it was affecting Sousuke’s brain. He swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat.

            “No,” Makoto replied, his voice just as quiet. “This is the part where I make you feel better.”

            Sousuke’s eyes snapped open and he found himself looking into a clear green abyss. He could see the details of Makoto’s irises, the slight colour gradient leading into his pupil. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so green, and how could he not have realised until now that it was the best colour in the world?

            Makoto glanced up from his hand on Sousuke’s shoulder and met Sousuke's gaze. Makoto’s pupils dilated and he swallowed, and Sousuke felt a thrill run through him. Before Sousuke knew it, Makoto had slid his right hand behind his head and pulled their lips together.

            The swift movement startled Sousuke, but only for a second, and then he was kissing back with more enthusiasm than he’d been able to muster for anything for weeks.

            Makoto appeared to take the reciprocation in the spirit it was intended, and guided Sousuke forward, pulling the taller boy down on top of him.

            Sousuke pulled away from the kiss long enough to murmur Makoto’s name in warning, forgetting for a moment that the difference between their physical sizes was basically non-existent. Makoto ran his hands down Sousuke’s sides, looped his lower left leg around the taller boy’s right leg to get better leverage, and leaned up to whisper, “Trust me, I can take your weight,” into Sousuke’s ear.

            Sousuke realised that for the first time ever he was in bed with someone who could match him in every way, and he wouldn’t have to consciously take care or hold himself back for fear of hurting his partner. That thought was accompanied by Makoto biting his earlobe, dragging it lightly between his teeth as he pulled Sousuke fully onto him, and Sousuke felt a throb in his groin where it pressed against Makoto’s hip.

            Makoto made a thoughtful humming sound, and shifted his hands from Sousuke’s waist down to his ass, pulling Sousuke's crotch down even as he thrust his own hips up. He angled slightly to the right to bring their crotches into contact, and his unfailing aim earned him a groan from somewhere deep in Sousuke’s chest.

            “You have too many clothes on,” Sousuke growled. He pushed himself back so that he was only straddling Makoto’s thighs, and pulled the hem of the other boy’s shirt up, with the intent to take it off. He hesitated for a second, wondering whether his shoulder would consent to doing that in its current condition. Luckily Makoto noticed the pause and read Sousuke's hesitation correctly, because he reached up to pull his shirt off himself.

            As if realising that Sousuke was also going to have trouble with his own clothes, the green-eyed boy pushed himself into a sitting position and placed his hands back on Sousuke’s waist. Makoto leaned forward to kiss him as he slowly slid his hands up Sousuke's sides, pushing the hem of his sleeveless shirt up as he went. Sousuke shivered as Makoto’s cold hands caressed his heated skin, and only reluctantly pulled away from the kiss when the contact of their lips impaired the removal of his shirt.

            Sousuke slipped his left arm out of the garment, and Makoto carefully lifted it the rest of the way off over Sousuke’s head and right arm. He did it so gently, took so much care not to cause any further pain, that for a moment Sousuke was overcome with an emotion he couldn’t name. He hadn’t had much time for friends or relationships while he was pushing himself to be better than everyone else, and then physiotherapy took up as much time as his training had, and now he had too many secrets to risk opening up to anyone who wasn’t Keiko. He suddenly realised that apart from Keiko and Rin, he didn’t really have any friends, and even Rin barely knew him anymore.

            Yet here was Makoto, captain of the rival swimming team, best friend of the boy that Sousuke had proclaimed his nemesis, who still barely knew him but was willing to care for Sousuke’s emotional state regardless, and who was currently treating him like he was the most precious thing in the world. At any other time it would make Sousuke feel weak and inferior and he would hate it; but he was sad and the pain in his shoulder was worse than it had been for ages, and Sousuke would have nothing after Rin left to pursue his dream—not after he wrecked his shoulder completely in the relay—so right now he was immeasurably grateful for any sort of kindness.

            Makoto threw Sousuke’s shirt onto the other bed, and looked back at Sousuke’s face, stopping short at what he saw there. His hesitance made Sousuke realize, mortified, that tears were brimming over his eyes and streaking down his cheeks. _Crying, in the middle of foreplay?_ He mentally chastised himself. _Damn it, Yamazaki, what is wrong with you?_

            “What’s the matter?” Makoto asked. “Did I hurt your shoulder? I was trying not to…”

            Sousuke shook his head. “No, no.”

            “Do you not want to do this? We can stop if you want.”

            Sousuke brushed away the tears and swallowed hard around the emotions blocking his throat, forcing the words out. “I do want to. I promise. I’m sorry, I just…I don’t know why I’m crying, this is so _stupid_ …”

            Makoto’s hands were on his face then, wiping away the fresh tears with his thumbs, and then Sousuke found himself wrapped in a strong, sure embrace. He buried his face in the curve where Makoto’s neck met his shoulder, and heard the other boy’s words in his throat before they were spoken.  “Hey now, it’s alright. Don’t apologise. You’ve got a lot going on.”

            He let himself be held as he waded through the sudden torrent of emotions that had overtaken him. Makoto was running his fingers through Sousuke’s hair and it felt so nice and soothing that Sousuke nearly started crying again. _Jeez. I’m as bad as Rin._

            A few minutes later, when Sousuke was sure that all of the tears were safe behind the bars of his resolve, he pulled out of Makoto’s arms and wiped away any stray tear tracks with the back of his hand.

            “Well. That was humiliating,” he said with a little self-deprecating laugh.

            “Don’t worry about it,” Makoto replied with an understanding smile.

            “Really, I’m so sorry. What a way to ruin the mood.”

            “We can get it back,” the green-eyed boy replied. He looked like he’d been about to say something else, but his gaze caught on Sousuke’s shoulder and he reached out to touch the pale scar there. Sousuke looked down and followed the path of the other boy's finger, glancing back up at Makoto’s face when the soft caress trailed down over his bicep.

            Makoto was much closer than Sousuke had expected him to be, and when he smiled his tingle-inducing smile again, Sousuke was lost. Makoto was unrealistically beautiful in the way that teenage heartthrobs always were, and had exactly the right kind of boy-next-door personality to match. But there was something else in his eyes, something that hinted that his clean-cut and respectable image wasn’t entirely truthful, that perhaps he had done this before.

            Sousuke was sitting back on his heels and Makoto was kneeling in front of him on the bed with his weight on his knees, which meant Sousuke had to look up into his face. It was almost ludicrous, this position, given that it was the complete opposite of what people would expect. Kind, respectful, quintessential-big-brother Tachibana and aloof, reticent Yamazaki? If this was an anime, Sousuke would be the seme. But this was real life, and Sousuke was hesitant and more than a little insecure when it came to sex.

            Makoto’s fingers had finished their journey down to Sousuke’s hand and were now drifting their way back up, this time along the sensitive underside of his arm. Sousuke shivered, and Makoto’s lips quirked up in one corner. One look at that mouth and Sousuke swallowed hard. “I feel like I’m being seduced,” he whispered.

            “Maybe you are,” Makoto murmured in reply and closed the distance between them. Sousuke pushed away his hesitancy, deciding to just enjoy himself and not overthink things. After a year of standing in the background behind Rin, Sousuke suddenly found himself at the centre of someone’s attention, and it was like feeling the sun on his face after standing in the rain. With every kiss he felt himself being pulled further and further away from his problems, and everything that had seemed so important a short while ago paled in comparison to the importance of Makoto’s touch. He burrowed his fingers into Makoto’s hair, feeling the heat and dampness near the roots where it hadn’t quite dried. He tugged slightly and Makoto moaned, clutching at Sousuke’s waist. His fingers pressed hard for a second and then let up and shifted down to Sousuke’s hips.

            “Probably shouldn’t leave any bruises where they’ll be seen,” Makoto murmured in-between kisses.

            “Good idea,” Sousuke agreed.

            Makoto took advantage of the momentary separation and laid down, pulling Sousuke with him by the grip on his hips. Sousuke let the other boy draw their lips together again, and ran his hands up from Makoto’s hips, over the rock-hard abs, to rest just underneath his rib cage. Makoto arched and squirmed slightly at the touch, and Sousuke pulled back.

            “Ticklish?”

            “Yes,” Makoto breathed.

            “Interesting…” Sousuke applied a little more pressure and Makoto quivered, his face scrunching up. It was just about the cutest thing Sousuke had ever seen. He filed the reaction away for a later date and leant down to kiss the other boy again, obligingly moving his hands back down to Makoto’s abs. Makoto’s hands were in his hair and his tongue was doing unspeakable things with Sousuke’s, and Sousuke couldn’t remember ever being this hard. Just when he was sure he was going to combust with desire, Makoto broke away and gasped out, “Pants.”

            Sousuke didn’t need to be told twice. He clambered off of Makoto, knowing it would be easier to shuck his pants from a standing position. That done, he turned back to find Makoto looking him up and down appreciatively. With a grin Sousuke stalked forward and knelt on the bed, pushing Makoto back and leaning over him to trace a path down his deliciously muscled torso with his lips. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of the shorter boy’s pyjama pants, and pulled them down tantalisingly slowly.

            Makoto pressed his head back into the pillow, eyes closed in bliss as he enjoyed Sousuke’s ministrations. Sousuke was rubbing little circles into Makoto’s hips as he slowly moved his kisses downwards, pulling the pyjamas down at a matching leisurely pace. He stopped when he reached the waistband of Makoto’s boxers and pulled the pyjama pants all the way off, throwing them somewhere off to the side, not caring where they landed.

            Makoto pushed himself into a sitting position and ran his left hand down Sousuke’s back until it came to rest on his ass, using his other hand to guide Sousuke's face back up so they could kiss again. Makoto squeezed Sousuke's ass, appreciating the shape and firmness. Sousuke made a small sound in the back of his throat, feeling his blood supply direct itself down to the junction of his thighs with more urgency. He must have shifted slightly, because Makoto grinned into their kiss and trailed his right hand down to cup the current source of Sousuke’s thoughts.

            Sousuke gasped as Makoto slipped his hand into the opening at the front of Sousuke’s boxer briefs. His hands were still a bit cold, especially on Sousuke’s heated flesh, but it only served to heighten things, so to speak. Makoto stroked him a few times, and then abruptly pulled away from the kiss and pushed on Sousuke’s chest until he was lying on his back beneath Makoto. Sousuke was sorry to lose the pressure of Makoto’s lips on his own, but the glint in the other boy’s eyes made Sousuke think that he had other, better plans for how to use his mouth.

            Sousuke raised himself onto his left elbow to see what Makoto was up to, and promptly dropped back down as the other boy just about swallowed him whole. Sousuke’s vision went white. For all his outward confidence and swagger, his actual sexual experience was pretty much limited to masturbation and the few mutual handjobs he’d shared with one of his teammates at Tokitsu. He’d never been sucked off before, and he finally understood why people made such a big deal about it. He felt himself being pulled closer and closer to the edge, and moaned loudly.

            The sound brought him back to himself, and he summoned enough presence of mind to realise what was going to happen soon. Makoto did too, it seemed, because he paused for a fraction of a second. Sousuke fought against the lust that was weighing down his limbs and pushed himself back up onto his elbow, reaching forward with his right hand to lace his fingers into Makoto’s hair.

            “Makoto…oh, god.” His voice was less cooperative than his arms had been, so he settled for tugging on the other boy’s hair. Luckily Makoto took the hint and glanced up, giving Sousuke’s erection one last torturous lick before releasing it. “I don’t…” Sousuke swallowed hard, trying to remember how to string together a sentence. “I’m won’t make you…you know. I’m not going to-”

            “Come in my mouth?” Makoto asked, and Sousuke was very surprised that he could say it without blushing. There was something about having someone’s dick in your mouth that made things less embarrassing, it seemed. “What if I want you to?”

            Sousuke blinked. “Do you?”

            Makoto didn’t answer right away, and that was all the answer Sousuke needed. He leaned forward and gave Makoto’s mouth something else to occupy itself with. Namely, his tongue. Sousuke could taste himself in the kiss and it was more erotic than he thought it would be, especially when he was so close to orgasm as it was. It was once again his turn to get Makoto down onto his back, and he leaned forward into the kiss, pushing the other boy backwards. Once he was settled against the pillows, Makoto reached for Sousuke’s erection.

            Sousuke moaned into the shorter boy’s mouth and shifted down so that his weight was on his forearms, knowing his arms would give out if he didn’t. He couldn’t maintain the kiss and cope with Makoto’s strong grip at the same time, so he pulled away and settled for resting his forehead against Makoto’s shoulder instead, wanting to sink his teeth into the thick muscle but resisting the urge because it would be too visible. That was his last coherent thought before he lost all control and convulsed in Makoto’s grip, pulled under by a wave of white-hot pleasure.

 

_To be continued…_

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, we're not finished with the porn. You don't think I'd let Makobae miss out on his turn, do you? ;)


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